Hope
by Child of Loki
Summary: Marcus Pierce came to L.A. for the woman who could make The Devil bleed, but he just may have found what he's been really searching for in the most unexpected place. Marcus Pierce(Cain)/Ella Lopez


**Author's Note: **This brought me out of fanfic-writing retirement for some reason. I'm new to this series and am currently in mid-season 3. I can tell where the canon is headed (a Chloe/Pierce pairing to angstify Lucifer/Chloe arc) but this is where I rather see it go... A oneshot, I think?

* * *

What was he doing?

For the first time in a millennia, he had a goal, something to focus on, something that was always just out of reach; _Hope. _

He had come to L.A. for the woman who could make The Devil bleed. But instead… Instead…

"C'mon." The small, slender hand slipped into his, settled against his palm like it was made to be there, like a key in a lock. "Dance with me, Lieutenant."

"I don't dance."

Ella Lopez frowned. She looked at him in that _way _of hers, scrutinizing, scouring his soul. There was something disturbing about her ability to read people. Something wholly unsettling to a man who had been scrutinized by tens of thousands in the span of his unending life, who had been able to shield the blackness of his heart from them all. Until her. But she'd also said she'd seen some light in him. So how astute could she be?

"That's a lie," she said. Her eyes were a brown so dark they were nearly black, and yet, they were nothing but warmth and light. Even when they held his captive, determination and force of will clashing, demolishing his own. She was a silly, repulsively optimistic little woman. And yet she'd bulldozed him time and again. He'd been cold, hard, mean to her. Maybe no one had before. No one she'd respected at least. It had seemed to crush her at first. But ultimately, it had only made her bolder. "You've got moves, Marcus Pierce. You know it. And so do I."

He pressed his lips together, part of him still resistant to give in so easily. Part of him rejoicing in the struggle, the battle of wills, that she made him want to resist, that she made him want to give in. Over the eons, he'd experienced the full range of human emotions; joys, sorrows, anguish, lust, love, bloodlust, hatred, shame, fear… They'd all grown stale and dull. At least, they had… Until her.

"You want to dance with me." Ella shimmied closer in time to the beat of the music filling the club. She easily slipped her small frame between him and the table, between him and the whiskey he was nursing, pushing into the gap between his knees, forcing him to spread his thighs and let her press closer. His sitting position mitigated their height difference, placed her in a stimulating, devastating region. Extremely devastating. Not just physically. He'd done it all, physically. He'd thought he was frankly beyond wanting sex as more than a means to meet some need his body periodically craved, like water, food or caffeine. But there was something else in the way this woman made him… _feel._

He growled her name in warning when she pressed up against the crotch of his jeans. Whether it was a warning for her to back off, or to himself, it was difficult to say. Ella had a way of confusing things for him. Thousands of years spent in one's own company, a man tended to get to know himself quite well. He hadn't been confused about his wants, his needs, his feelings (as dull as they'd grown) for a long time.

"You want to dance with me." she slid her hands up his arms, a shudder and sigh escaping her as she lingered on his biceps before settling her hands on his shoulders. And looked into him again. How was she still Goodness and Purity and Light when she was also filled with such wanton desire? "You want to show me your moves."

"You mean _you _want me to show you my moves." He slipped a hand around her, her waist firmly in his grip, his fingers easily brushing her spine, his thumb nearly at her navel. Damn, she was small in his hands. She wasn't even a tiny woman, really. He just… He tended to satisfy his needs with larger, taller, a little less delicately built ones. And there'd been men, of course, amongst other genders. But usually more robust individuals than this sensuous little thing.

"Yes, _please_." Her gasp was entirely erotic. Her fingers dug into the muscle of his shoulders and her body moved in a much slower undulation against his, no longer in sync to the beat of the deafening music, but to a song all her own. One inviting him to join.

"Then you've got a choice to make, _narāmu_." She didn't react to the old word that had slipped unwittingly past his lips. How long since he'd spoken it? Since the last time he'd felt like this? Since the last time he'd given control to another? "Do you want to dance with me here? Or do you want to go someplace private, just the two of us?"

"Yes," she said, locking eyes with him. Her small hand cupped his cheek. She was all Goodness and Purity and Light. And maybe she could fill him with it, illuminate every dark corner of his cursed soul. And even if she couldn't, she'd already given him something he'd been searching for; _Hope._


End file.
